Some Basic Concepts of Venda Music
Musical Instruments
The Variety and Meaning of Venda Communal Music
Speech-Tone and Melody
Tone Rows and Modes in Venda Music
Tonal Organisation in Venda Music
From Speech to Song - Tempo, Meter and Rhythm
From Mass to Line - Tonality, Harmony and Melody

See also:

Notes on the Musical Transcriptions (Domba)
The Music of Domba (Great Domba Song)

Abstract

This chapter is based on texts Blacking published between 1967 and 1970, dedicated to the 'cultural analysis' of Venda music. The first three introductory texts were taken from Venda Children's Songs (1967b), providing the reader with a general overview of Venda music. This is followed by two more sections from Venda Children's Songs, in which he outlines some basic principles of Venda music which formed the bed-rock for subsequent analyses of Venda musical styles, namely his findings on the relationships between speech-tones and melody in Venda musical practices and his notion of 'harmonic equivalence' in Venda music. The final section, 'Tonal Organisation in Venda Music', applies and extends these ideas in relation to the music of vhusha and tshikanda through a meticulous analysis of over seventy songs.